Anger. For Flourishing Relationships.

Embracing rage helped me break through a family legacy of isolation and fear

In an old photograph of my mother, she looks like a frightened bird, startled, peeking over her shoulder to see who's approaching.

My childhood home was filled with bickering and moderate yelling rather than full-on rage. Once in a while someone would explode and then retreat back into their own little corner. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way - Tolstoy, but I so resonate with Vera’s “personal background” in her wonderful article about what anger gives us.

“My father had almost daily outbursts of anger as if it was his second-paid job, while my mother stayed silent, believing it might buy us peace… She refused to stand up to my father, just as she avoided to confront her parents.”
Vera from The Existential Dread Diet

Two things helped me break through a generational legacy of being walled-off, afraid to show myself to anyone, near or far. One: My own anger. Two: My husband’s.

If you’re oblivious to your own rage, or desperately pushing it aside, you’ll either end up with more extreme fights and arguments or you’ll go through life having sacrificed true closeness.

More extreme fighting - because you’re like that kid who holds it in, holds it in, holds it in… and then throws a chair at someone.

Sacrificing closeness - because if you’re “lucky” enough to be with someone who disowns their own rage, the two of you can just float through life on parallel pathways, never seeing each other’s darkness, never coming back to loving each other still and all.

Have you experienced the gift of being loved by someone who’s seen you at your very worst? Being seen when you’re disastrously falling apart is necessary if you want to be fully known.

Have you been truly heard by someone when you tell them that they’re hurting you, including how and what you want instead? And then moving towards what you want, through all the demoralizing, heartbreaking downs and the cherished, embracing ups.(And back through the downs, it must be said.)

If it wasn’t for anger, I would’ve probably let guilt keep me trapped indefinitely.
Vera from The Existential Dread Diet

Thank you Vera. I also would have most likely been trapped forever if not for anger. But for me it wasn’t guilt that would have kept me silent and shut in, but rather fear.

Fear of my own anger.

Fear of being seen. Rejection and so on.

Most of all fear of trying to show myself but remaining invisible to the person across from me!

That last one happens frequently because my love and I are so very different.

When I’d go back to deadening my anger out of fear and hopelessness, his anger would rekindle my own. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t pretty. We’ve each learned an ocean since the days when his mood would blister and I’d try to put out every last flame.

Anger has a lot of untapped energy which can lead to transformation; if we let it. It’s not just destructive. Oftentimes, it’s just a wake-up call that can lead us in a better direction. Vera from The Existential Dread Diet

Learning to be radically true to my angry self, while still wanting to hear and understand him, that’s what saved my life.

Read more from Vera here about how to harness anger and turn it into something that nourishes you.

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